Ellen O'Grady is the author of Outside the Ark: An Artist's Journey in Occupied Palestine. She lives in Durham, NC, and travels frequently, giving storytelling/slide-show presentations based on her work. She is currently drawing panels for her next book The Magic Nation, a graphic novel that explores boundary crossing. For more information check out her website: www.ellenogrady.com.

There has been constant discussion in our news media about the continuing conflict between Israel and Palestinians in the tiny strip of land on the Mediterranean known as the Gaza Strip. In an earnest effort to both understand better and take action, Marc Adams, a contributing editor at Busted Halo, began an online conversation with a group of former Jesuit volunteers, friends and family. His initial questions regarding how to deal with the crisis have generated a rich dialogue about what we, here in the US, can and should do about the situation in Gaza.
Much of the email correspondence centered on how to understand the facts on the ground — including our media’s portrayal of the state of affairs versus…

How much do you really know about Islam? Read this basic guide to find out.

Most of us hear about various Islamist groups such as Al-Qaeda, Taliban, Muslim Brotherhood, Hezbollah, and Hamas without understanding what they really represent, why they have won support, and the similarities and differences between them. Similarly we hear the words Sunni and Shia to distinguish Muslims and Islamist groups from one another, but few know what they mean. The following gives a brief overview of Sunni and Shia Muslims, Islamism, and the two Islamists groups most in the news today: Hezbollah and Hamas.
Shia and Sunni Muslims
When the Prophet Muhammad died in the early 7th Century, he left the religion of Islam along with an Islamic State on the Arabian Peninsula with around one hundred thousand…